#EndSARS: Lagos disputes panel’s casualty figure, spots inconsistencies

The Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters has been rejected on Tuesday, by the Lagos State Government.

The panel casualty figure stated that no fewer than nine persons lost their lives when armed soldiers stormed the Lekki toll gate to disperse #EndSARS protesters on October 20, 2020

This claim, which was contained in a 41-page White Paper released by the state government on Tuesday night, countered the findings by the Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel that nine persons were killed by gunshots at the toll gate.

Meanwhile, the JPI had recommended that a monument memorialising the lives lost and those injured should be erected at the Lekki toll.

Countering the recommendation, the state government said, “This recommendation is not acceptable to Lagos State Government for the following reasons: The finding of the JPI at page 288 paragraph M is that “The evidence of the pathologist Prof Obafunwa that only 3 of the bodies that they conducted post mortem examination on were from Lekki and only one had gunshot injury and this was not debunked.

“We deem it credible as the contrary was not presented before the panel.”. The JPI’s finding of nine deaths is therefore irreconcilable with the evidence of Prof. Obafunwa that only one person died of gunshot wounds at 7:43 pm at LTG on October 21, 2020.

“Having held that there was no evidence before it to the contrary of what Prof Obafunwa said, the question is where did the JPI then get its finding of nine deaths? This finding of nine deaths at LTG on 20th October 2020 is even more baffling because apart from listing out their names in tabular form at pages 297-298, the JPI offered no explanation regarding the circumstances of their death.

“It is quite astonishing that in the list of eleven deaths set out at pages 297-298, two of the names appeared twice (Kolade Salami and Folorunsho Olabisi as Nos. 37 and 38).